Coca-Cola HBC AG, the parent company of Nigeria Bottling Company PLC said its business in Nigeria continues to underperform due to slow demands.

In its full year 2017 results, CocaCola said it had a good momentum in Emerging and Developing segment countries except for Nigeria and Russia, which delivered marginally lower volumes in challenging environments.

Zoran Bogdanovic, Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola HBC AG, commented: “I am fortunate to have taken over a business performing well and with a clear strategic direction. 2017 was an exceptional year for us, and we are delighted to have delivered strong growth in volume, revenue and margin, overall demonstrating significant progress towards our 2020 objectives.

“We are excited about the year ahead, which has a particularly strong pipeline of product innovation and commercial activity around our route to market and in-store execution. There is good momentum in the business and a determination to build on our success. We are confident that 2018 will be another successful year.”

CocaCola Nigeria competed with SevenUp Bottling Company owners of Pepsi. The latter has now been acquired by South Africa’s Affelka, a private equity firm after struggling for several years to stay afloat.